Patreon

Written by beckyw on October 6, 2014

Please Support Us on Patreon!

If you have followed us from the beginning, you know that our first real public appearance was on a poorly thought out Kickstarter Campaign. Long story short, we failed the campaign and didn't get any of the funding we were pledged. The failure, as hard as it was to swallow at first, was the best possible thing for Board Simple. We were able to take a step back and change things for the better. Now we have relaunched a new campaign on a new site, Patreon!

After our Kickstarter Campaign, we kept going! We kept pushing out games and making changes to make the site better. Up to now, we have been using games from our own collection and some games we backed on Kickstarter. The problem is, we are running out of games and continuing to purchase Board Games at the rate we need breaks our budget a bit. That is where we are looking for some help. We have posted a Patreon Campaign to try to gain some funds for more games and possibly some better equipment. We plan to pass the games to our supporters through a Board Simple Garage Sale, so we aren't just using money for free games for us.

We would love to support game designers and give their games a spotlight on Board Simple. Our plan is to create new sections of Board Simple to highlight the people who make the games after we get some funding to do so. If you like what you see on Board Simple and would like us to continue creating content, we would love it you could help us out. Any amount is helpful!

Happy Gaming

Changes!

Written by beckyw on August 31, 2014

Changes!

Board Simple has changed! We hope for the better. You probably noticed that we went off the grid as far as updates on what we are doing, for that we apologize. We put our nose to the grindstone working late nights and weekends to try to get Board Simple to a better state. We are almost done with changes and will get up and running on a new game next week! Although we were bummed to have the dilemna come up with our images, we were glad it happened. Without conflict, we never would have stepped back to look at ways to make things better.

While we were changing things we tried to keep our general mission in mind, to make games simpler to play. We realized we had not been doing the greatest job keeping things clean and simple. With that in mind, we gave the Cheat Sheets a makeover. Along with the Cheat Sheets, we have also added a Cards and Components tab to some of the games that have cards/tiles that need a bit of explanation. We want to continue to make it easier to find the information you need while playing a game and that this tab will help.

If you have visited the site before, you will notice the Discussion tab is also missing. It was decided to put the Discussion section on hold while other projects are getting finished up. We're sorry if anyone has been looking forward to that, eventually we hope to get it up and running.

Check out the new site and as always, we would love to hear feedback or comments if you have any. As mentioned, it is almost done, and Village is the last game that needs work. We really hope this makes the site easier to work with and we look forward to getting back up and running working on a new game next week!

The Role of the Rules

Written by beckyw on July 6, 2014

The Role of the Rules

One of my earliest memories of playing board games is playing the game of Life with my sister. It was somewhat rare for us to get along for long periods of time, but we could put aside our sibling rivalries for an afternoon of Life. We loved the game. It was our chance to pretend we were older when getting older was still desirable. We loved getting married and getting to put another little peg in the passenger seat of the tiny plastic car. We loved getting a career and gaining money on paydays. It was one of our favorite games and we would play it all the time. We played it so many times that we never had to consult the rules to play, it was like second nature.

Later in life, my sister and I sat down to play the game again. We reminisced about how much we loved the game and how excited we were to play it again. The years away from the tiny pegs and cars had wiped our memories clear of the rules we once knew by heart, so we had to review the rule book. As we played, we realized the game seemed different than the magical game we had played as kids. The difference was, as kids we had played the game how we wanted to, not how the rules told us to.

I’m not sure how we came up with the rules we played with as children, but somehow we had created a game that fit us. We created a game focused on laughing at the other player when they made the smallest salary or lived in the worst house. We created a game focused on naming our spouses and the children that rode along with us in our cars and yelling at the kids in the back seat when they acted up. We changed the rules we didn’t like into rules we did like. Who knows if we would have spent as many hours playing the game if we had actually played it correctly.

It quite possibly sounds ironic for a person who spends their time teaching people how to play the rules correctly, to be talking about a game she only enjoyed because she played it incorrectly. Yes, it is important to know the rules of game, otherwise it is no more than a game board, cards, tokens, pawns and dice that you have no idea what to do with. The point is, it’s ok to change things in a game to fit the preferences of you and other players. Maybe you adjust something so the game is not so long. Maybe you simplify something so a younger child can play. It’s ok! We all know the old saying, “Rules are meant to be broken”. The rules are just a more popular route from point A to point B, plenty of detours are available. It’s all about having fun! You have the freedom to make a game what you need it to to be so that you and others can have fun. That is the true purpose of a game, isn’t it?

Ups and Downs

Written by beckyw on June 30, 2014

Ups and Downs

We are not at all strangers to the concept of change throughout the process of making Board Simple. It's a normal part of creating something. You come up with a concept, throw it against the wall and see what sticks. Inevitably some things will slide down the wall and you will have to make changes to come up with a solid idea. Those of you who have followed us from the beginning have seen some of the evolution of Board Simple. Just when we were starting to become happy with the site, we had to evolve again. The site we were using to make our pop up images made some changes. Their new changes in terms of service and an unfortunately placed new Thinglink logo created the need to move away from their product.

As unfortunate as it was to have to redo the site a few times for the next game when it was just about ready to be posted, it was actually a great time for us to reflect on what we were doing and create a better, more concise concept for our cheat sheet and step away from relying on other sites. We definitely understand the changes Thinglink had to make and still think they have a great product that we enjoyed using.

We apologize for the long wait for the next game, but we are excited to get back on track. Our next step will be transitioning our images off of Thinglink while trying our best to push new games out. We appreciate your understanding.

Additionally, we've made a huge number of tweaks to the website and the guides. It might not look like there's a whole lot to Board Simple, but there is a lot that goes into getting these guides to display on your computer, tablet or phone! Even things as minor as tweaking the layout of the game list can take most of a day of trying and tweaking.

And finally, there has been a great deal of effort put into the Community and Discussions functionality for Board Simple. We aren't just going to toss up another boring web forum, we want to make sure the Community is inviting and easy to use for people of all levels. Additionally, we are building in a great question and answer functionality to allow anyone to as a question and allow the community to upvote the best answer.

We are so close to pushing out version 1 of the communtiy functionality, and we are excited to receive feedback on ways to make it better! Additionally, we are continuing to produce guides for new games. Alhambra is up next, with the rest of our current collection to follow.

Kickstarter Launched!

Written by joelw on February 4, 2014

Kickstarter Launched!

After a couple months of hard work, tweaking, testing and nitpicking over details, we've finally decided that it's time to launch the Kickstarter!

We think that BoardSimple is pretty awesome, but we really needed to put it up and get the campaign launched so we could confirm it.

We still have a few things left to code and tweak, Search and the Community being the main things. Other than that, though, we really just need people to check out the site and give us comments and suggestions.

If you didn't happen to get here via the Kickstarter campaign, please go check it out and show your support!

Making Progress!

Written by joelw on December 4, 2013

The Site is Online!

It's been a lot more work than initially anticipated, but the site is finally at a stage where we could put it on the internet!

We have worked pretty hard the last couple weekends, and evenings in between, on our first video guide and also on this website. We still have a ton of work to do on the site, but luckily the first guide is almost done.

In a day or so we should be publishing our first guide for Bohnanza. We are also continuing to enhance and add features to the website, so better mobile responsiveness and feature refinement will be coming soon!